A Letter to the Hon. Samuel A. Eliot, Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill.Dexter, Franklin
Philosophy
A Letter to the Hon. Samuel A. Eliot, Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill.
Dexter, Franklin
Eliot, Samuel Atkins, 1798-1862; Fugitive slave law of 1850; Slavery -- United States
In closing this long letter, permit me to advert to the opinion
expressed abroad of your Fugitive Law. Mr. Webster thought it convenient
to quote the sentiment of a nameless correspondent, as to the
mischievous mixture of religion with politics. Possibly the opinion of
Dr. Lushington, one of the Lords of the Privy Council, Judge of the
Vice-Admiralty Court, and the negotiator, on the part of Great Britain,
of a recent treaty with France, may be entitled to at least equal
weight. This gentleman, in a private letter to an English friend, and
not intended for publication, thus speaks of your law:--"No one can feel
more sincerely than myself, abhorrence of the Fugitive Slave Bill,--a
measure as cruel and unchristian as ever disgraced any country." An
Irish liberal, writing from Dublin, says,--"I long looked to your
country as the ark of the world's liberties. I confess I hope for this
no longer. The Fugitive Slave Bill is a shocking sample of the depravity
of public sentiment in the United States. So atrocious a measure could
not have passed into a law, if the majority of the people had not
actively assented, or passively consented. Here, by the preponderating
influence of our aristocracy, a small, but compact body, measures are
often carried into laws that are very distasteful to multitudes; but
such a mean, vile law as the Fugitive Slave Bill could not pass in
England."
The English press, Whig, Tory, and Radical, is indignant at the
atrocities of your law. The taunt of our slaveholders, that the English
had better reform abuses at home, is thus met by a radical journal (_The
People_):--"The Americans laugh at us when we speak of American slavery,
so long as so many of our fellow-subjects in England and Ireland are
perishing from starvation through monarchical and aristocratical
tyranny. We answer, that the Americans _know_ that the men and women who
lift up their voices against American slavery are the enemies of British
tyranny and oppression."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account